Forgiven
by Sunlight-Scars
Summary: SiriusOFC. Attempting to cope with the death of the man she loved, Sirius's girlfriend reflects on their life together while struggling to find a way to get him back.
1. Chapter 1

First of all, disclaimer: I own nothing and no one but my little original character, all the credit for the genius of the _Harry Potter_ series goes to J.K. Rowling. I also do not own the lyrics at the start of each chapter. Those are from "Forgiven" by Within Temptation.

I apologize in advance for any of Ms. Rowling's magical rules I may dent, bend, or break in the course of this fic. And the Sirius I write here is a bit of an amalgam of the book character and Gary Oldman's portrayal of the character, the latter of which truly inspired this story - for better or worse.

I wasn't going to post this just yet, however, I had a friend of mine read it and she said that she found the transitions into and out of the flashbacks to be confusing. I don't agree, so I'm posting it here in hopes of getting some opinions on that.

The story itself takes place just a few days after Sirius's death, though the first chapter is a flashback, and there will be continuous flashbacks scattered throughout.

**Chapter One**

_"You'll always be mine  
I know deep inside  
All that's done's forgiven"_

Aella strolled slowly through the crowded corridor, students all around her meeting with friends and rushing off to the Great Hall for lunch. Aella cast anxious glances all around her, not caring in the least if she obviously looked as though she were searching for someone. She slowed her pace further - she felt like if she moved any slower, she wouldn't be moving at all. As if any of this was going to make Sirius find her any faster. She knew it didn't matter. Her actions were all subconscious. Aella knew full well that Sirius would "find" her whenever he felt like it.

She hadn't seen him for a few days, since the night everyone first arrived back for the year, as a matter of fact. After the customary beginning-of-the-year sorting and feast, once all the students had gone back to respective common rooms, she and Sirius had retired early from the Gryffindor common room, sneaking to the boys' dormitories to have sex under James's Invisibility Cloak.

Aella was irritated by her dependency, by the fact that she needed Sirius. Furthermore, she knew he was probably avoiding her just to see how angry he could make her. Sirius seemed to love showcasing his talent of robbing Aella of any anger she may harbor for him, just by giving her the right look. It didn't matter if Aella had been seething for days, once she laid eyes on that long, black hair tumbling over large blue eyes, and that arrogant, charming smile, she couldn't help it. Who could stay mad? And even if she had the conviction to hold steadfast in her anger, what would be the point? She was only able to steal so much time with Sirius as it was, and that time was already much too little.

Aella sighed angrily as the corridor around her became more and more deserted. She had just made up her mind to hurry to the Great Hall and scour the place for Sirius when a strong arm suddenly wrapped roughly around her waist and a hand covered her mouth. In a matter of seconds, she was lifted off her feet and whisked into a nearby broom closet. The closet door shut loudly behind her, but her captor still did not release her. Aella squirmed a little in his grip, just for the hell of it, knowing full well who had his arms around her. If the mere fact that no other person in the school seemed to want to lay a hand on her wasn't enough for her to know her captor's identity, then his smell was certainly sufficient. Aella's mind worked strangely around Sirius's smell; she marked the passage of time by it. To her the school year didn't start until she was standing close to him, inhaling the scent of clean laundry and the springtime smell of fresh grass that lingered inexplicably with him. Conversely, summer wasn't summer until she was in his arms, breathing leather and firewhisky.

Sirius's hand moved from her mouth, sliding briefly across her neck before both his hands pulled her robe open, groping at her breasts through her shirt and sweater. Aella leaned her head back against his shoulder, breathing heavily more in the relief she felt from his touch than anything else. After a moment, she brushed his hands away and turned to face him.

"Sirius..."

His hands on her hips now, he grinned that grin that could charm any woman out of her clothes. He brushed a lock of light brown hair away from her hazel eyes.

"Aella."

A thought suddenly occured to her and she changed her expression to match it. She hit his chest with an angry fist.

"Where have you been, you bastard?"

Sirius sighed, a look of mock exasperation on his face.

"It's hard for me to get away," he explained sarcastically, as if he'd been doing something terribly important.

Aella shook her head. She took a step closer to Sirius, so that she had to tilt her head slightly upward to meet his eyes.

"You telling me you'd rather spend your time with your boys than with me?"

Sirius gave a low growl that seemed to warn Aella against making him choose between his girl and his best friends.

Aella looked slightly sheepish, as if she'd just been reprimanded, but Sirius could see he'd hurt her.

"Hey," he began in a soft tone perfect for an apology. He touched her face lovingly, brushing hair away again.

"No," Aella interrupted, kissing the palm of his hand and looking as though she'd shaken off the sadness. "It's okay. I just miss you."

Sirius smiled slowly, as if giving her time to say something more before he took her word for it. He leaned forward, kissing her softly and pushing her backward until she found the wall. Aella immediately wrapped an arm around Sirius's shoulders for support as he pulled her thigh up to his hip, his fingers lingering teasingly just under the fabric of her skirt. As Sirius's tongue slipped into her mouth, Aella shoved her free hand into his pants, pulling out his tucked-in shirt and sliding her hand over his chest, eager for the touch of bare skin. She opened her eyes as Sirius's lips left hers, moving his kisses down her neck. Aella took the opportunity to moan his name and comb her fingers affectionately through his hair. Sirius growled sensuously against her neck in response and wrapped her other leg around his waist. Sirius held her safe in the precarious position as Aella used both her hands to unfasten his pants. Her fingers freeing him, stroking him teasingly, Sirius's eyes caught Aella's, looking over her face for a few seconds that seemed to stretch on much longer. Sirius leaned closer, ready to kiss her, the moan of his name still escaping her lips, when everything seemed to dim, then fade away.

Aella had no idea where she was. Her mind faintly registered the sound of screams, but from somewhere far away, very distant. Everything was dark, and with most of her mind still fogged in sleep, she seemed to linger in a kind of purgatory. Abruptly, reality came rushing back to her as she realized the screams were her own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two  
**  
_"Couldn't save you from the start  
Love you so it hurts my soul..."_

What Aella saw and heard seemed disconnected. She knew, from what she was seeing now, that she was awake, back in reality. But the screams erupting from her seemed beyond her control. It truly was as if they were someone else's. However, they soon became hers as she realized just why she was screaming. Aella's screams transformed themselves from nonsense syllables into a clearly definable name. They became more than just noise that she could barely register as her own. Her screams now pointed the finger at the source of her anguish. Sirius.

Her screams slowly simmered into cries, then sobs. By this time Aella was sitting bolt upright, tears streaming down her face and Sirius's name flowing from her lips, a crazed mantra she couldn't control. She finally began to quiet herself, her harsh, ragged breathing filling the room's silence briefly before she heard footsteps outside her door, then a group of people bursting in. Cold hands gripped her wrists and ankles, the figures faceless in the dark.

"Sirius..." Aella whispered, her tone of voice no longer one of anguish. She sounded now more like an exhausted victim of fever.

"I know, Aella, I know," came a calm, clinically calculated voice.

Aella felt a brief sting in her arm.

"Just relax, now," said the voice, the last syllables nearly inaudible as Aella fell back into sleep. 

* * *

Sirius's face immerged from the blackness.

Back in her memories, Aella was a year away from that day in the broom closet with Sirius. She was no longer sixteen years old and mystified by him. Over a year, she'd learned much about Sirius. He'd stopped keeping secrets from her. If Aella hadn't been sure a year ago that he loved her, she knew it for sure now. Part of it, was, of course, because they'd been able to spend so much time together over the summer before their last year at Hogwarts. Aella was Muggle-born; her parents silently accepted her magical abilities, but never supported her endeavors in the wizarding world and certainly did not approve of Sirius. Nevertheless, as Aella and Sirius came of age in the wizarding world, it was significantly easier to find ways to see each other. Many nights Sirius would Apparate into Aella's bedroom, or while Aella was out she would sometimes spot a large black dog, just a stray dog, people might think, but Aella knew. And she felt safer and more confident in everything she did, knowing always that Sirius was watching over her.

The two lay on the large hearthrug in the Gryffindor common room, Invisiblity Cloak thrown over them, more for the safe, private, romantic feeling it provided rather than for any fear of being seen. The fire was burning quietly, not as bright as it was when the common room was full. It was the early hours of the morning; all their fellow Gryffindors were sleeping soundly in the dormitories, oblivious. Sirius and Aella both lay on their sides, facing each other. Sirius wearing only his pants and Aella in short pajama shorts and a tight tank top, their limbs tangled around each other.

"You know how much I love you?" Sirius whispered, his tone hearty and slightly playful, making him sound much more sincere to Aella's ear than if he'd spoken in some kind of stereotypically romantic, breathy voice.

"Tell me," Aella whispered back, her fingers sweeping strands of silky black hair out of Sirius's eyes.

Sirius stared at her in silence for a few seconds, so they both found themselves listening to the other's breathing.

"I love you more than you'll ever know, more than I can tell you," Sirius whispered, his voice deep and steady, as if he said this everyday. "I love you so much that sometimes I think I'm going insane. It's like I feel so much that I don't know what I'm feeling at all."

Aella closed her eyes, touching her forehead to Sirius's. He tilted his head so he could catch her lips in a quick kiss. Aella remained this close to him after she broke their kiss. Her eyes stayed closed as she spoke.

"It hurts, the way I love you," she stated, her voice a low whisper, no louder than it needed to be; her words were only for him and immensely easy to speak. Sirius had become a part of her, there was nothing she couldn't tell him.

"It's the way I've always wanted to love someone but never knew it was possible," Aella went on sincerely.

Sirius interrupted her with a brief, lusty kiss, as though he couldn't help himself.

"Feels like a...fire, or something, inside me. Burns everything. Sometimes I think it's killing me. I don't care about anything. Nothing else matters anymore."

Aella spoke her fragmented thoughts straight from her own mind and she knew he understood them. He interrupted her again with that same kiss.

"There are these times," Aella continued, a bit of finality in her voice, "when we're apart... I need you so much, that I know...I could just kill the whole world to get to you." 

* * *

"Aella? Aella?"

Aella slowly opened her eyes, sunlight streaming through the window to her right. She immediately closed her eyes again, squinting against the garish light. She turned her head to her left.

"Aella, you have a visitor," said the nurse, in a tone much too cheery for Aella's taste.

A bespectacled face with desheveled black hair suddenly become almost eye level with her, sitting next to her bed. Aella's vision still blurry and her mind still groggy, she initially thought that it was James at her side, but as her eyes focused, she realized it was Harry.

"Oh, hey, sweetheart," greeted Aella, strain in her voice as she hoisted herself into a sitting position.

"Hi," answered Harry, smiling sweetly though he obviously wasn't sure how to approach her just yet. "How are you?"

Aella blinked a few times to clear her eyes of sleep, then looked back at Harry with an odd expression on her face. Harry reckoned the expression was an attempt to look sardonic.

"Well, I'm just peachy-keen, Harry. How are you?" Aella's tone was absolutely vicious, though completely level.

"Sorry," Harry said hastily. "I just - "

"I know, honey," Aella answered, her voice soft and all trace of her rage suddenly gone as she took Harry's hand in her own, "I'm the one who should be sorry, you didn't deserve that."

She gave his hand a healthy squeeze and managed a sad, thin smile.

"You and I have got to stick together, we're the only ones who know how the other feels."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_"I've been so lost since you've gone  
__Why not me before you?  
__Everything turned out so wrong  
__Why did you leave me in silence?"_

Aella slowly climbed out of the narrow bed, standing with only a slight stagger. She grabbed a light jacket hanging on the wall opposite the bed.

"Take a walk with me, Harry."

Harry stood and followed Aella out of the small room and into the hallway. Two passing nurses came inside as Aella led Harry outside to the courtyard.

"How're you feeling, Aella?" asked one with deep concern.

Aella gave an annoyed little lying-through-the-teeth smile that only Harry caught before she changed her expression to the appropriate amount of graciousness.

"As well as can be expected, Nurse Harker. I shan't kill myself today, so never fear, you've at least one more day in which you are guaranteed to see my shining face," Aella retorted quickly.

Harry had to supress his grin as he and Aella passed the nurses and entered the garden outside. Aella was so like Sirius. Harry was suddenly struck with a terrible regret and sorrow that he could not have witnessed this couple together more often, for he was sure that together they would have been brilliant. Harry realized sadly that he had surprisingly few memories of Aella and Sirius together.

Harry thought both fondly and sadly back to one small but touching memory of the couple's interaction, when he spent part of the previous summer at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Aella was an Auror and often gone on missions for the Order, but occasionally she found time to spend at number twelve. Harry remembered one night in which hunger had caused him to creep quietly down the stairs to the kitchen, when on his way he saw Aella sitting in one of the house's more spacious rooms, snuggled comfortably in an overstuffed chair by a slowly dwindling fire. She cradled a book in one arm, her other hand stroking the shaggy black fur of the dog curled in her lap. At first glance, Snuffles appeared asleep, however, any time Aella moved her free hand to turn a page or readjust her book, the dog emanted a low, playfully threatening growl. Aella seemed to take no notice of the sound, but always returned her hand dutifully to the dog, occasionally smiling or throwing a glance downward to her lap.

When Harry brought himself out of his reverie, Aella was seated on a wide stone bench, lighting a cigarette and looking out over the small garden. Harry sat next to her on the rather uncomfortable bench.

"How're you getting on, Harry?" Aella asked suddenly, as if she hadn't snapped at him earlier for asking her the same thing.

Harry nodded slowly. "I'll make it," he replied simply.

"Of course you will," Aella stated, as if she had no doubt of it. "You're your father's son. You're strong like him. And like Sirius."

Harry watched Aella carefully as she took a deep drag on her cigarette and looked around the courtyard as if expecting to suddenly see Sirius just because she'd spoken his name. She had an anxious air about her, and Harry couldn't stop himself from feeling that it seemed as though she were waiting for Sirius.

"I have a...plan, Harry," she said quietly, as if admiting guilt.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"It's not a very good one," she continued, as if he hadn't spoke. "I don't know if it will work."

Aella slipped two fingers under the collar of her plain black t-shirt, pulling out a long, dainty gold chain ending in a tiny hourglass.

"You're not -" Harry began, his eyes growing wide at the sight of the Time-Turner.

"You've done it before. That's why I need you to come with me. You've saved him before."

"That was different!" Harry protested, recoiling slightly as if he were trying to talk down someone holding a weapon. "We went back _before _he died. If you could just go back in time to stop someone you love from dying, well...no one would ever die, would they?"

"I didn't say it would work. All I'm asking is that you help me _try_."

Aella paused, looking as if she were torn between laughter and tears. Her lips trembled slightly before she spoke.

"I'm so lost without him, Harry. I can barely go on as it is. I certainly won't be able to live the rest of my life knowing I did nothing."

Harry couldn't help the flashes of memory in his mind as Aella said those words. As she took the blame that Harry had already tried to take upon himself so many times. Every member of the Order who had been there at the Ministry that night must have had their times to think that Sirius's death was their fault. Harry's sadness, the grief he so recently believed he'd begun to let heal, surfaced again as if he were reliving that night.

He remembered watching Sirius fall, that deceptively peaceful fall. He remembered how he knew, he just _knew_, that Sirius would appear on the other side of that veil. It was so disgustingly quiet, the way he died. It took what seemed like ages for Harry to get his mind around it. He and Aella had both run toward that archway. Harry realized now that though they both made the same move, they had very different motivations. While Harry had run up to that archway to find Sirius, thinking that he was not dead, Harry was sure now that Aella's intent was to follow Sirius, knowing full well what his fate had been, and what hers would have been...had Kingsley not pulled her back from the curtained archway.

Harry rembered the vicious hate and sorrow in Aella's face and voice as she hurled curses at Bellatrix. It was almost frightening. Aella's scream of "_Avada Kedavra_!" had echoed in Harry's mind for so long. The Killing Curse seemed so connected with the Death Eaters in his mind that it was almost as if he could never have imagined it coming from the mouth of a friend. But Harry himself had even had a brush with the Dark Arts that night, attempting to use the Cruciatus Curse against Bellatrix only moments later.

"It wasn't your fault, Aella. It wasn't anyone's fault. You _didn't_ do nothing."

"I couldn't even avenge him," Aella protested, hopelessness in her voice.

"It's not too late for that," Harry reminded her in a voice deeper than usual, a voice that let Aella know he clearly wanted his revenge too.

"Please, Harry," Aella said, her voice thin and sounding thoroughly exhausted. "Just please help me try. What harm can it do?"

Harry remembered something Hermione had told him, when they'd used her Time-Turner to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak, "_awful things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Harry..._" Yet, Harry was truly feeling sad and selfish enough that he could not see any problem with Aella's desperate, feeble plan.

Aella seemed to see it in his eyes before he even said anything.

"Alright," Harry whispered. "But it's not going to work."

Aella managed a small smile. "Before we go," she began, tucking the Time-Turner back into her shirt, "there's something I want to show you."

Aella stood, and Harry followed her. She led him to the front gates of the hospital. Harry suddenly wondered if this was why Aella chose to put herself in a Muggle psychiatric hospital rather than one of the wizarding hospitals. Did all Muggle hospitals simply let patients walk out?

"Are you just going to leave?"

Aella smiled thoroughly this time. "I was in and out of this place so often during the twelve years that Sirius was in Azkaban," Aella shook her head as if this were a fond but slightly embarrassing memory, "they know I'll eventually be back. They were none too surprised when I showed up here again. They call me a "recurring case" or something like that."

Harry tried to return her smile, but couldn't help thinking that after Aella left this time, she would not be coming back.


End file.
